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AboutSara

Sara Khan is one of the UK’s leading Muslim female voices on countering Islamist extremism and promoting human rights. In January 2018, Sara was appointed Lead Commissioner for the newly created Commission for Countering Extremism by the Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

In 2008, Sara co-founded the innovative women's led counter-extremism organisation Inspire (www.wewillinspire.com) with the aim of challenging gender inequality and Islamist extremism. She served as director for ten years. She is also author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Battle for British Islam: Reclaiming Muslim Identity from Extremism" (Sept 2016). Her activism has received national and international recognition and she has been profiled in the Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Independent, Standpoint magazine and Vogue magazine. Sara has received a number of distinguished awards including BBC Woman's Hour Top 10 Influencer in 2015 and was named 2016's "Groundbreaking Activist" by Marie Claire magazine.

A born human rights activist she completed an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights and she has written numerous comment pieces for the Guardian, the Independent, the Telegraph, the Observer, the National UAE, the New York Times, the New Statesman, the Sun and Huffington Post. She has also appeared on Channel 4 News, Sky News, CNN Amanpour, ITV News, BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ Programme, BBC Woman’s Hour and ITV’s Loose Women. She has been interviewed for BBC's Desert Island Discs (aired June 2016) , BBC HardTalk (aired September 2016) and also been a panelist on BBC Question Time.

Sara has written a chapter for the book “Sensible Religion” published in 2014 entitled “Retrieving the Equilibrium and restoring Justice: Using Islam’s Egalitarian Teachings to reclaim Women’s Right.”

After the 7/7 bombings she sat on the Home Office’s Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Working Group and also sat on the Government’s Department for International Development’s (DFID) External Expert Advisory Group on Girls and Women advising the International Development Secretary. She also served on the Department for Education’s Due Diligence and Counter-Extremism Expert Reference Group.

Sara is passionate in tackling extremism, championing human rights and working towards building a cohesive society. To learn more about the work of the Commission for Countering Extremism please visit https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/commission-for-countering-extremism.